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Return to the Valley of the Snow Monkeys

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Just got back from a few days up on the Japanese mainland. I flew from Okinawa to Niigata, met up with my friend Steve, then drove south into Nagano prefecture for a day with the snow monkeys and a couple of days snowboarding.

Steve at the start of the trail up to Jigokudani Onsen

Steve at the start of the trail up to Jigokudani Onsen

There was much less snow than during my previous visit so the hike up the trail was no problem.

Hiking up the trail to Jigokudani Onsen (photo by Steve)

Hiking up the trail to Jigokudani Onsen (photo by Steve)

At the hot springs I spent the afternoon photographing the various monkeys. You can read about my first visit to Jigokudani Onsen on my main website.  Previously I had taken most of my snow monkeys photographs with a huge 400mm telephoto lens, but this time I wanted to get even closer so I left the telephoto lens in Okinawa and brought a macro lens for some portraits. As you can see it wasn’t difficult to get very close to the monkeys.

Up close with the snow monkeys at Jigokudani Onsen

Up close with the snow monkeys at Jigokudani Onsen (photo by Steve)

Once it was too dark to shoot, we headed over to the Korakukan Jigokudani guesthouse to relax in the onsen. I was hoping that the monkeys would come and join us in the pool, but they were not interested in joining the bathing apes.

Steve the bathing ape, Jigokudani Onsen, Nagano

Steve the bathing ape, Jigokudani Onsen, Nagano

It will be a few more days until I get my film processed. Will post the new photographs as soon as they are scanned.

Pentax Optio W90 and the Countdown to the Pentax 645D

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A couple of new cameras will soon be released from Pentax. The first is the latest in their line of rugged waterproof cameras, the w90. I’m a big fan of the W-series. They’re perfect for vacations when you may forget to empty your pockets before you dive in the ocean.

Pentax Optio W90 Camera

Pentax Optio W90 Camera (mud not included)

The bigger news is the countdown to the unveiling of Pentax’s flaship model, the long awaited Pentax 645D. I believe the sensor will be 1.7 times the size of a full frame 35mm sensor, but no news yet of how many megapixels, new lenses, the price, or the date of release.

Countdown to the Release of the Pentax 645D

Countdown to the Release of the Pentax 645D

Natsumi Photo Shoot

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Just got back from a fun photo shoot at Shikina Gardens in Naha. I was assisting fellow photographer Annya Eyestone as she photographed Japanese model Natsumi. I didn’t take my big camera, but did get a couple of shots with my little digital point and shoot. I converted a few to black and white as it hides various noise and color issues. Here’s my favorite.

Natsumi Photo Shoot and Shikina Gardens, Naha. (Pentax W60)

The Fine Print in Photo Competitions

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This post will hopefully shed a little light on the growth of photo competitions that have goals other than celebrating talent or promoting photography.

The first type of competition are simple money earners for the organizers. These competitions will charge a fee  per entrant or per image with the opportunity to win big prizes. Of course, someone will win the photo safari to Africa but if they get thousands of entrants at 50 dollars each the organizers will have made a healthy profit.

The second type of competition is more insidious and it involves what is known in the industry as ” a rights grab.” The organization announces a competition which may have some great prizes and no entry fee. However, when you read the fine print, it says that by submitting the photograph to the organizers you are giving them some degree of ownership of the image rights. You may be giving them permission to use the image to promote the competition (which is reasonable) but you may also have allowed them to sell that image to other websites or magazines for a fee from which you, the photographer, will not receive any payment. This may go a stage further with the competition organizer submitting your images to various stock agencies and again taking all the licensing fees. The copyright of the image may still belong to the photographer but suddenly their fantastic image has become the generic shot seen everywhere.

As an example, here’s the fine print in a Lonely Planet photo competition. Note that  on the entry form it automatically ticks the box next to “Grant Lonely Planet a General License to use my image(s)” And what is a General License…

Lonely Planet Photo Competition Fine Print

Compare this to the fine print for the Travel Photographer of the Year competition which states:

Fine Print from the Travel Photographer of the Year Competition

The Travel Photographer of the Year is well worth checking out even if it’s just for inspiration, there are always great entries. Another fantastic photo competition (that doesn’t try to grab image rights) is the Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Sushi Zen: Apologies, Embarrassment and Disappointment

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A couple of months ago I posted a blog entry advertising that an Okinawan photo club I belong to was having a mini exhibit at a local restaurant called Sushi Zen (see original post here). The pictures were up all January and when the month finished the owner was more than happy to have the exhibit continue on into February.

Yesterday, I saw a comment on Facebook saying that Sushi Zen didn’t allow Japanese customers. I thought that something must have got lost in translation, but unfortunately, the comments made on Facebook were true. A regular customer of the restaurant told me that the Japanese owner had worked in America and on his return to Okinawa he set up a restaurant making American style sushi that would be popular with  Americans on the island. Japanese customers however demanded Japanese style sushi,  and made negative comments about the American customers when talking in Japanese.

It appears that to create a comfortable atmosphere for his American clients, the owner decided to make the restaurant a private club. Entry to the restaurant is free for Americans, Japanese have to pay 100,000 yen to join. A Japanese woman is allowed into the restaurant without paying the membership fee if she is escorted by an American. All Japanese men have to pay the membership fee. I went over to the restaurant today to check, and saw these signs on the door.

And below it

So first an apology.

I’d like to apologize to any of my Japanese friends or readers who may have gone to the restaurant and seen this sign and or been turned away. If I had known about the policy of Sushi Zen I would not have displayed my photographs there. Today, as soon as I saw the signs, I removed my pictures from the restaurant.

I briefly talked with the owner to again confirm the details and it was clear that he didn’t want Japanese customers and that this was his restaurant so it was his rules. He kept referring to the signs on the door.

I had expected this situation would make me feel angry, but instead I feel disappointment and sadness. Would his American customers feel so comfortable if they could read the signs telling Japanese they are not welcome. How would an American servicewoman feel if she was married to, or dating, a Japanese national and found that they were not allowed to eat there.

Some might use the argument that there are places in Japan that don’t allow foreigners. I agree this does happen. While living in Otaru (Hokkaido) I was told I couldn’t enter a ramen shop because “Russia-jin dame!!” (No Russians) or use one of the local onsen/sento because it would make Japanese people uncomfortable (we wouldn’t wash properly and might drink vodka in the bath). Just because there are other examples of exclusion on the basis of gender, skin color, religion or nationality does not make it any less wrong.

I hope that things will change for the better.

100 Yen CDs

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Japanese video stores such as Tsutaya and GEO rent DVDs, Blu-ray discs, comics, video games and CDs. Sometimes they sell off the older DVD’s and CD’s as ex-rentals and recently GEO had a big sale with whole shelves of CD’s on sale for just 100 yen each. It’s been fantastic wandering around the aisles of various stores and as an entire album is less than a single song on iTunes I’ve been quite happy to try things I wouldn’t have otherwise bought. Surprisingly a large number of the CDs were by Scatman John, which even at 100 yen, I managed to resist.

41 CDs = ¥4,100

So if you happen to see me in my car singing hits from the nineties you now know why.

“Movin’ to the country,

Gonna eat a lot of peaches.

Movin’ to the country,

Gonna eat me a lot of peaches”

Million Dollar Music Videos

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I came across a list of the most expensive music videos ever made on Wikipedia. 31 videos on the list cost at least a million dollars to make.  I was surprised  that along with global superstars including Michael Jackson, Madonna and Britney, four of the million dollar videos were made for Japanese singer pop star Ayumi Hamasaki.

Here’s one of Ayumi’s videos, Fairyland. I expect that taking Ayumi, dancers and film crew to a tropical island probably took up a good part of the budget. The video also serves as a useful public information announcement on the dangers of candles.

The never ending cold and Photoshop.

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I have had a cold for nearly 6 weeks. The sore throat and runny nose ended after a few days but I have a lingering cough that doesn’t want to disappear. So I tried to rest, eat healthy food and give my body time to recover. When that had no effect I went to the doctor and was given some antibiotics and various other tablets. When they had no effect the doctor gave me some different antibiotics and another selection of tablets. I think I just need a good dose of sunshine, as the weather has been miserable for weeks.

Meanwhile, I’ve been sitting at my computer and learning about Photoshop. You can do a lot of amazing things in Photoshop and it is surprisingly easy to manipulate reality.

Original

With Photoshop

As a photographer this raises all sorts of ethical questions about what you should or shouldn’t do to an image. For news photographers the rules are clear, nothing should be changed. For travel photography I think it would be best to do the same. However, it is extremely useful to be aware of just how easily these changes can be made. For example, take an old photograph of the moon and an old photograph of London Bridge and in less than a minute you can combine the two.

Tower Bridge plus a Photoshop moon.

I’ve seen shots like this before and wondered how the photographer achieved it. Clearly I am no Photoshop master – you may have noticed that in my composite image the moon has no reflection – but it has made me wonder just how much “enhancing” has been given to the images we see in magazines.

Flip Canvas Horizontal

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Flip Canvas Horizontal is a useful adjustment in Photoshop that gives you a mirror image of your photograph. A few words of warning, which photographers and particularly photo editors should remember.

Flipping an photograph that contains writing will create problems. This is obvious if you can read the text, less so if you can’t.  If a photo editor or graphic designer can’t read kanji it becomes far too easy for images to get flipped during layout. This has happened to me several times. Even more troubling are the cases where an image of a Japanese person in a kimono is flipped. In one simple step in Photoshop you have created the living dead. This is because

“For both men and women, always wrap the right side of the kimono over the body, then overlap it with the left side. Right on top of the left is only used to dress a corpse for burial.” Japanese kimono.com

Soon you will begin to notice the flip canvas horizontal adjustment in unexpected places. This screen shot from the movie Rain Man has Tom Cruise holding the bag in his right hand, and Dustin Hoffman wearing a small red badge on the left side of his jacket.

Rain Man movie screen shot

Rain Man movie screen shot

Movie poster, VHS/DVD cover has a flipped image. I presume this is because Dustin Hoffman takes top billing and therefore his name comes first on the movie poster. In order to have the correct name above each person they simply flipped the image. Who will ever notice?

Rain Man Poster flip canvas horizontal

Rain Man - flip canvas horizontal